Big Data

[Captain Obvious]

Oh, and the side ads on this site are driven by what I had already searched on Google Chrome.

I doubt many of you are getting Disney and Kings Dominion ads, right?

Getting a Rackspace ad after I posted about Robert Scoble in another thread, who happens to work for the ompany.

 

[YankeeFan]

Have a discount card for a grocery store? That's a treasure trove of data.

I always decline those. For one thing, I don't want to be tracked. Second, I'm tired of being up-sold or pressured into joining these discount clubs and carrying multiple membership cards, either in my wallet or on my keychain. Just ring me up and leave me alone.

I'm not a huge fan of these programs either, but you get some pretty good & immediate savings by signing up for them.

 

[Brian]

Theoretically, I don't think Kroger's discount card knows who owns the card. They simply give the card wothout filling out any paperwork. But I'm sure if you use your credit card and the discount card together, they can make that connection.

 

[Football_Bat]

I'm not sure if this is what the OP is referring to, but my sister had told me about this and it is fairly creepy.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2012/02/16/how-target-figured-out-a-teen-girl-was-pregnant-before-her-father-did/

There is a link in the above to a NYT magazine story from last month that talks in-depth about the data mining.

So Target started sending coupons for baby items to customers according to their pregnancy scores. Duhigg [NYT] shares an anecdote — so good that it sounds made up — that conveys how eerily accurate the targeting is. An angry man went into a Target outside of Minneapolis, demanding to talk to a manager:

“My daughter got this in the mail!” he said. “She’s still in high school, and you’re sending her coupons for baby clothes and cribs? Are you trying to encourage her to get pregnant?”

The manager didn’t have any idea what the man was talking about. He looked at the mailer. Sure enough, it was addressed to the man’s daughter and contained advertisements for maternity clothing, nursery furniture and pictures of smiling infants. The manager apologized and then called a few days later to apologize again.

On the phone, though, the father was somewhat abashed. “I had a talk with my daughter,” he said. “It turns out there’s been some activities in my house I haven’t been completely aware of. She’s due in August. I owe you an apology.”

Of course, it bothers me when I'm pricing flights and then I log on here and get a Google ad that says "Fly Delta from YYY to ZZZ for $467."

That Target story is hilarious.

Did she type in "pickles and ice cream" on her Google search a bunch?

 

[dreunc1542]

Have a discount card for a grocery store? That's a treasure trove of data.

I always decline those. For one thing, I don't want to be tracked. Second, I'm tired of being up-sold or pressured into joining these discount clubs and carrying multiple membership cards, either in my wallet or on my keychain. Just ring me up and leave me alone.

I'm not a huge fan of these programs either, but you get some pretty good & immediate savings by signing up for them.

The stores have designed it so that you basically have to have a card (so they can track you) or you're going to be paying much more. The most ridiculous example I've encountered is Ralph's on the West Coast. The final bill would usually be about half of what the price would be without a card. One way around it is to not get a card and ask the cashier to swipe their card for you, but they'll try to get you to sign for a card first.

Also, every time someone brings up the ads they get on this site, or any other, I'm reminded that there are people who don't use Ad Blocker, which confuses me. It's free, easy to set up, and it makes being online so much smoother.

 

[93Devil]

Have a discount card for a grocery store? That's a treasure trove of data.

I always decline those. For one thing, I don't want to be tracked. Second, I'm tired of being up-sold or pressured into joining these discount clubs and carrying multiple membership cards, either in my wallet or on my keychain. Just ring me up and leave me alone.

I'm not a huge fan of these programs either, but you get some pretty good & immediate savings by signing up for them.

The stores have designed it so that you basically have to have a card (so they can track you) or you're going to be paying much more. The most ridiculous example I've encountered is Ralph's on the West Coast. The final bill would usually be about half of what the price would be without a card. One way around it is to not get a card and ask the cashier to swipe their card for you, but they'll try to get you to sign for a card first.

Also, every time someone brings up the ads they get on this site, or any other, I'm reminded that there are people who don't use Ad Blocker, which confuses me. It's free, easy to set up, and it makes being online so much smoother.

Ad Blocker eliminates all the ads on these pages?

 

[dreunc1542]

Yep. I haven't seen an ad on this site in years.

 

[Captain Obvious]

Yep. I haven't seen an ad on this site in years.

But is it unethical like deleting cookies to bypass paywalls, which is considered unethical by some posters here?

 

[buckweaver]

Yep. I haven't seen an ad on this site in years.

Same here. Had to re-download Firefox recently and first thing I did was go find my Ad Blocker Plus plug-in. Can't even imagine browsing the Internet without it.

 

[RickStain]

I download TV shows, movies and video games without a second thought, but ad blocker software just feels wrong to me.

*Shrug* Moral cognitive dissonance is weird.

 

[Diego Marquez]

Some of the marketing stuff you get targeted with is actually pretty good and helpful. So, on the one hand, total loss of privacy and civil liberties. On the other hand, cheaper hotel rooms in Vegas.

Tough call.

What loss of privacy and civil liberties? If you elect to use the card ... at a store ... with other shoppers around? Nothing private about shopping, it's just retailers now can compile information about what you buy. Forty years ago, the cashier simply punched in the cost from the price sticker and handed the item to the bag boy.
As for online shopping, if you believe there's any privacy here, you are as naive as most newspaper readers.

 

[Azrael]

Big Data are plural. Aren't he?

 

[dooley_womack1]

Yep. I haven't seen an ad on this site in years.

But is it unethical like deleting cookies to bypass paywalls, which is considered unethical by some posters here?

Apples and tinfoil, but you already knew that.

 

[Captain Obvious]

Everyone justifies getting around restrictions. Human nature to do so. Deleting cookies, using ad blockers, or giving a fake name for a discount.

 

[dooley_womack1]

Ad blocker is avoiding the seeing of something. Getting around a paywall is the active taking of something. Apples and tinfoil. Then again, you already knew that.

 

[Bob Cook]

Big Data are plural. Aren't he?

Maybe it should be Big Datum.

 

[Captain Obvious]

Ad blocker is avoiding the seeing of something. Getting around a paywall is the active taking of something. Apples and tinfoil. Then again, you already knew that.

You mean you can block ads without downloading a plug-in and enabling it?

 

[dooley_womack1]

That's hardly the point. I can drive by Walgreen's without stopping at it or even looking at that side of the street. I can't walk into Walgreen's and grab some candy bars and walk out without paying.

 

[YankeeFan]

Couple of interesting articles:

WHEN the e-mail came out of the blue last summer, offering a shot as a programmer at a San Francisco start-up, Jade Dominguez, 26, was living off credit card debt in a rental in South Pasadena, Calif., while he taught himself programming. He had been an average student in high school and hadn’t bothered with college, but someone, somewhere out there in the cloud, thought that he might be brilliant, or at least a diamond in the rough.

That someone was Luca Bonmassar. He had discovered Mr. Dominguez by using a technology that raises important questions about how people are recruited and hired, and whether great talent is being overlooked along the way. The concept is to focus less than recruiters might on traditional talent markers — a degree from M.I.T., a previous job at Google, a recommendation from a friend or colleague — and more on simple notions: How well does the person perform? What can the person do? And can it be quantified?

The technology is the product of Gild, the 18-month-old start-up company of which Mr. Bonmassar is a co-founder. His is one of a handful of young businesses aiming to automate the discovery of talented programmers — a group that is in enormous demand. These efforts fall in the category of Big Data, using computers to gather and crunch all kinds of information to perform many tasks, whether recommending books, putting targeted ads onto Web sites or predicting health care outcomes or stock prices.

Of late, growing numbers of academics and entrepreneurs are applying Big Data to human resources and the search for talent, creating a field called work-force science. Gild is trying to see whether these technologies can also be used to predict how well a programmer will perform in a job. The company scours the Internet for clues: Is his or her code well-regarded by other programmers? Does it get reused? How does the programmer communicate ideas? How does he or she relate on social media sites?

Gild’s method is very much in its infancy, an unproven twinkle of an idea. There is healthy skepticism about this idea, but also excitement, especially in industries where good talent can be hard to find.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/28/technology/how-big-data-is-playing-recruiter-for-specialized-workers.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

While Sears struggles to right its long-suffering retail business, its little-known data analysis and management unit, MetaScale, has become a sought-after “big data” player.

MetaScale, housed at Sears’ headquarters in northwest suburban Hoffman Estates, sells open-source software tools that let clients burrow through their data storehouses at warp speed and figure out how to best promote their products and services — all without jeopardizing the data’s security.

The company’s name is a play on “metadata,” or data about data that reveals the contents and context of data files.

MetaScale won’t divulge revenue and growth figures or name its clients.

But CEO Phil Shelley, who is marking his one-year anniversary leading the venture, and as Sears chief technology officer, has become one of the most sought-after geek therapists on the IT leadership speaking circuit.

“People want to learn how Sears is using its innovative techniques to manage and drive value from data,” he says. “People are asking us, ‘What did you do? Can you help us get started?’”

Sears is trying to capitalize on the rush to big data as many companies look to jump on the beat their rivals to the punch. After all, shoppers use their smartphones to check prices, access real-time bargains and find deals online while shopping in stores, all the while expressing concern about their privacy and data security.

MetaScale responds with serious hand-holding for its business clients. It writes code, stores and secures data, and builds customized data-analysis systems for a growing number of clients in industries as diverse as insurance, railroads, health care, oil and gas, information technology and smart electric grids.

http://www.chicagogrid.com/news/sears-struggles-little-known-big-data-division-gaining-heat/

 

[Captain Obvious]

Great, another cause YF latches onto on a sports journalist's message board.

Do you actually do anything to support your pet causes besides posting links to stories on NYTimes.com?